[img]958|left|Alex Campbell||no_popup[/img]Dateline Boston — My S.O. and I just moved in together, into a fantastic apartment. There’s so much to write about — moving provides endless fodder for essays. Today I will tell you about the ghosts in our new shower.
[img]1077|left|||no_popup[/img]We have two bathrooms. One we call the “grey bathroom” or the “cold bathroom” because it’s painted grey and it’s freezing in there. There’s a funky shower stall in that bathroom that looks like it was stuck there so the apartment could be advertised as having two full baths. You have to close the door to open the shower door because there’s no space. S.O. and I decided that’s where:
• Guests could do their business,
•The kitty litter box would go,
• Our cat could drink from the sink faucet.
We didn’t want to use that as our primary bathroom because it’s far away from the bedroom and you have to walk through the kitchen and dining area to get back to the bedroom. Plus, now there’s kitty litter dust on the floor. Who wants to step in kitty litter dust after getting out of the shower? Not me. Eww.
We use what we call the “city” bathroom, because it has a shower curtain with a city skyline on it. It also looks like a city bathroom. As in New York City. The bathtub is attached to the wall, but the wall behind the bathtub isn’t tile. It’s a regular wall. There’s a rectangular-shaped shower curtain rod around the tub, so you need two or three shower curtains to get adequate coverage so the walls don’t get wet.
Ohhh, What I Was Thinking
You would not have liked to be in my head during the planning phase of Operation Shower Curtain Coverage. I went online and searched for shower curtain liners. I figured I would need three of them. Then I found an extra wide one, with eighteen grommets, not just twelve. Ooh! I put it in my virtual shopping cart. I made sure that the liner had magnets on the bottom, because, as my friend M reminded me, if you don’t have the magnets, the shower curtain billows as you’re taking a shower. Eww. I had to order another liner, but they didn’t have a regular one with magnets that matched, so I decided to get one at the hardware store.
Then we moved in, and the first thing I wanted to do was set up the shower. I had ordered a nice shower curtain, so I was all set. Almost. See, I had gone to the hardware store, and they didn’t have the shower curtain liner I wanted. I needed a fabric one, not a plastic one, and one with magnets. All they had was plastic with magnets, and fabric with no magnets. I got the fabric one. Maybe the extra long one with the magnets would be enough to prevent billowing.
I began my task. I had to set up two shower curtain liners and one shower curtain, making the two ends of the liners line up so one end could be used as an opening, and the other end could be overlapped so water couldn’t get through. Oh, wait. Did I tell you where the shower control panel was? It’s on the wall behind the tub. The wall with no tile. Yeah. I had to put the liners there so there was space enough to stick your hand in and be able to adjust the temperature and turn the shower off.
Duck. Here Comes Casper, Maybe.
I got the liners on and then put the shower curtain on. It looked great. Then I noticed a little problem. Usually, you put the liner on the inside of the tub and the curtain on the outside, right? Well, because the tub was open on three sides and it had an old fashioned non-working tub faucet on the outside, the curtain didn’t drape evenly. I put it on the inside, and it draped nicely. The first time I took a shower in our new bathroom, I found the opening, was greeted with hot water from our newly installed shower head (thank you, S.O.), and was very happy.
Until the ghosts came. The shower curtain liner that didn’t have magnets started billowing towards me. After a minute, so did the other one! I looked down and noticed that because the shower curtain was now inside the tub, it covered the magnets so they couldn’t stick to the tub. Fantastic. I felt like I was showering with poltergeists, with the liners blowing in and out, draping me (ick!), then flowing back to the wall. I managed to finish my shower and claw my way out.
No. 1 on my shopping list: magnets. Super strong. I don’t like showering with Casper.
Ms. Campbell may be contacted at her new address, snobbyblog@gmail.com
